Happy Birth Moment

Published on 20/10/09 by randy

September 15, 2009

So what’s up? What’s ‘the action’? What’s the story? Moving down the river of life, the journey of discovery and deepening takes many turns. The challenge seems to be found in my dedication to cultivate awareness to the birthing of each moment’s arising. In a universe filled with distraction, with attempts from others to draw us from our heart’s authority, with the challenges of our restlessness…this is not easy.

It now seems more clear that the quality of my life, the story I bring, sources from ‘feeling’. The feeling births thought. The thought births emotion, the blend of feeling and thought. This is what fuels my action. The action seems to build my story and character, which contributes to soul’s destiny, once again bringing me full circle to the ‘feeling’. A healthy practice would revolve around dedication to feeling of well-being. A sense of interconnection, or core being, births feelings of joy, compassion and gratitude. This seems healthy food for combating the arising of negative feelings from our struggles with impermanence and uncertainty. I lose my grounding when caught in my notions of ‘belief’, thinking I’m right. Negative feelings feed a need for action to change what is to what I think ‘should’ be. Moving from fear and insecurity I’m at risk to injure others in my attempts to persuade and ‘fix’. Moving from positive feelings of compassion, I just ‘am’.

Silence is integral to this practice. My head is continually filled with thought. Thought corrupts genuine feeling, racing here and there. Undisciplined thought has gotten me into much trouble, many times resulting in action I wish I hadn’t taken. Yet, when the gap between thought is cultivated to the deeper sense of connection with everything, my needs to persuade, defend, fight, and judge dissipate. This silence gives me strength to stand solid in the experience of uncertainty. Strong in this space of silence, I’m now ready to listen. The listening is to my heart, to the deeper message from others, and to mindfully observe thought’s arising in preparation to skillful action.

In this dedication to awareness within the silent moment, I’m ready to step outside that with which I identify. Purpose and meaning remain. Attachment to what I’ve done and what’s accumulated dissipates. The real work is found in dedicating to a practice aimed to deepen awareness in gratitude for the opportunity to participate.

Today I’m fifty-nine years old. In one year I may have lived long enough to carry the wisdom of a baby elder. At this stage, I know my life’s easier the less I say. My work is to hold joy. My aim is to hold true to my heart’s authority in the face of those who exert force to get me to violate it, to deepen my practice in meeting the magic of the moment, to touch the surprise of the familiar, and to forever drill deeper as I journey the river of life in honor and respect to everyone’s varied journey.